Northern California golf coach accused of trying to have teens killed

Associated Press

April 30, 2014 - 3:47 PM

DUBLIN, Calif. — A San Francisco Bay Area golf coach who was set to receive an award from the PGA before he was arrested and accused of molesting three boys tried to hire a hit man to have them killed, prosecutors said.

The Alameda County District Attorney's Office has charged 32-year-old Andrew Michael Nisbet with three felony counts for solicitation of murder, authorities said. Nisbet already was facing more than six-dozen molestation charges.

An Alameda County jail deputy said that in February, a confidential informant showed him letters he got from Nisbet, who wanted the alleged molestation victims killed and discussed prices to get it done, prosecutors said in court documents Tuesday.

In March, Nisbet met with an undercover agent posing as a hit man, and the two discussed killing two of the victims, prosecutors said.

The agent, while making a shooting motion with his hand, allegedly told Nisbet he was a "mechanic and could fix a car." The term "mechanic" often is used to mean hit man or contract killer, prosecutors said.

Nisbet mouthed at least one of the victims' names to the agent and disclosed the cities the two victims could be found in, according to Jeff McCort, an inspector with the district attorney's office. McCort said the agent told Nisbet he would make it seem like a cellphone robbery.

"It appears from Nisbet's letters to and from the (confidential informant) as well as his conversation with (the undercover inspector), he is serious about having the victims killed in exchange for money," McCort wrote in a document seeking a warrantless arrest.

A subsequent search of Nisbet's jail cell turned up additional letters discussing the planned killings in detail, according to McCort.

Nisbet's attorney, Timothy Rien of Livermore, did not immediately return a call for comment Wednesday.

Nisbet was a nationally recognized instructor at a city-owned golf course in Livermore, a suburb about 45 miles east of San Francisco. His Dec. 7, 2013, arrest came a day before he was to receive the PGA's Northern California Section 2013 Junior Golf Leader Award for his work with young golfers.

He is accused of molesting three students between the ages of 12 and 17 between 2007 and 2012. He often showed the boys pornography, including child pornography, while he performed sex acts on them, authorities said.

"(Nisbet) created this coach-athlete bond with these young men and gave them rides to and from practice and bought them top-of-the-line golf equipment," Officer Steve Goard, a Livermore police spokesman, said after Nisbet's arrest in December. "He clearly used that to his advantage. He had pretty evil intentions, and he exercised them."